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We’re used to seeing politicians use loopholes; loopholes for funding disclosure, loopholes for expenses, loopholes for getting off driving offences but I doubt we’ve seen one loophole exploited as ingeniously as this…

Russian rules state that a candidate cannot ply the electorate with gifts, such as bags, mugs, pens and other tat BUT printed production of campaign leaflets and the like is allowed.

Most politicians would hand out propaganda leaflets that often get thrown in the bin but Sergey Pakhomov had a better idea. The current acting head of his hometown - the Sergiev Posad district of Moscow – used the “printing” exemption to 3D print some mugs, passing them off as printed campaign leaflets.

The mugs, which look like they were probably printed on a Z-Corp machine, so we wouldn’t advise pouring scalding drink into or drinking out of them, feature the date of the election and details of Pakhomov’s policies. It is fair to say that these mugs won’t find themselves in puddles or trashcans meters from where they were handed out.

Naturally, the opposition have taken against this hoping that the Electoral Commission will see it as bribery of the electorate hoping for some sort of punishment of their adversary, lawyers were instructed on February 10th to look into the case. But, for now, it has left election committee members dumbfounded with no idea what to do.

We’d imagine that in future campaigns the use of 3D printing propaganda will be banned but for now Sergey Pakhomov can bask in the publicity and confusion this little stunt has caused.

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